Wax Museum Murders
by zennie
Summary: Whatif case file. What if Sara had left and joined the FBI after requesting a leave of absence in Burden of Proof? Now, she's back in Vegas investigating a series of murders.
1. Default Chapter

**Wax Museum Murders**  
  
Disclaimers: Yeah, yeah, like I own this?  
  
Summary: What-if case file. What if Sara had left and joined the FBI after requesting a leave of absence in Burden of Proof? And what happens when she returns to Vegas to investigate a serial murder case? GSR.  
  
Rating: PG-13 for adult language.  
  
---------------------  
  
"So the Sheriff called in the FBI again on our case, and if it's anything like the last time..."  
  
"You'll work with an arrogant jackass who will take all the credit while you do all the heavy lifting."  
  
The voice from the doorway was low, husky, with a slow cadence that wasn't quite a drawl, and hadn't been heard in the hallways of LVPD criminalist labs for over nine months. "But hey, you can't argue with the feds."  
  
All eyes in the break room turned to her; she was propped up against the door jam, like she always did when she wanted to create a dramatic impact. She never failed, thought Grissom, as he took in her tall lanky frame and cocky half-smile. It was like she never left. But then he noticed the dark windbreaker was just a shade darker than the LVPD jackets they wore, and an unfamiliar badge hung from her neck on a chain.  
  
"Hey," she said in the ensuing silence. "I let myself in."  
  
Nick was the first one up, bounding out of his chair like a puppy and embracing her in an exuberant hug. "Sara. What are you doing here? Why didn't you write me and tell me you were coming?" Sara beamed at his enthusiastic greeting. Gil knew that Nick had kept up the most regular email contact with Sara after she had left, a source of pleasure when Nick would share news of her in the break room and a source of jealousy as well, since she hadn't replied to any of his emails since that fateful morning she had stormed out of his life.  
  
He replayed the moment in his mind as Warrick and Catherine joined Nick with hugs and questions. "A plant? Are you fucking kidding me?" He had looked at her, uncomprehending. Maybe he was wrong that she liked vegetation? "I come to you with concerns about my work environment, concerns you refuse to talk about and that you treat as a personality quirk... on MY part, and you send me a plant?" He leaned back in his chair, caught off guard by her vehemence. "Yes," he replied, since she had asked a question. She swung her body around, stalking back to the door, while he breathed a sigh of relief that she was leaving. But instead, she punched the wall beside the doorframe and turned to face him again.  
  
She exhaled audibly in frustration, shaking her head with little controlled movements, as if she couldn't find the words. Unfortunately, this was Sara. She always found the words, especially when she was angry. He still remembered how she had gone after the perp, "It got there when you shot your wife in the head...." At the time, he had just been happy that the anger hadn't been directed at his head, but now he was in for it. Both barrels, which was a fitting metaphor as looking into the darkness in her angry eyes was not unlike staring down the barrel of a shotgun. But she surprised him again; the softness of her voice caressed his ears as her hand had caressed his cheek not so long ago. The softness only made her words that much worse. "I give up. Sign my leave of absence, effective at the end of shift, or I'll quit." His horror at the choices presented to him etched every line of his face, and he couldn't speak; he never knew what to say to her, like she took his ability to frame words and sentences from him except when he was talking about work. Even then, occasionally, he would look up and see her intense expression as she listened, and he would lose the train of thought for a moment. But she was speaking again, and he forced himself to listen. "The only difference is, if you sign the leave of absence, I may come back." He took the slim hope she gave him, signed the form, and handed it to her, feeling a small part of himself wither and die as he watched her walk away.  
  
Now, she was back, but not back in the way he had always imagined. She was explaining how she was assigned to the case. Gil knew he had to do something, so he stood and extended his hand, and said, "Welcome, Special Agent Sidle." It sounded awkward even to himself, but once again, she had him at a loss. Catherine shot him a 'lame, Gil, lame' look that meant he was going to catch hell later, but for once Sara understood his gesture and replied smoothly, "Good to be here, CSI Grissom." He caught her half-grin and smiled in response just as she pulled him into a stiff hug complete with half-hearted back-patting. It was more than he deserved, and her smile when she released him let him know she knew as well.  
  
"So, I can brief you on the preliminaries real quick before my partner arrives, if you want," she said, breaking the awkward silence that had settled as Gil had tried to think of something to say and the rest of the team looked amused and pretended not to be meeting each other's eyes.  
  
"Um, sure." Nick had already poured Sara a cup of coffee as she sat down, and she winked at him as she realized it was from Greg's private stash. "So..." she began carefully, knowing these jurisdiction issues were always tricky, "we would not even been here if it was just your two cases. Your cases appear to be related to a series of deaths from one of our cold cases that stretches across seven different states and twenty-three years." She laid out the scenario briefly; eighteen deaths in twenty years, always in established to have happened in July, the last of which happened three years ago. "The three year gap and two deaths in a single month do signal a change from his previous MO, but the signature is the same, so we're not ruling out a copycat. Although the killer could have been off the streets for the last three years and feel compelled to make up the kill count as well. So that's why Agent Cooper, my partner, and I are here. We've had some success in solving three re-activated cold cases in the last nine months, and this one's been part of our caseload. So here we are. Or I am, anyway."  
  
As if on cue, her phone rang. "Speak of the devil. Excuse me." She stood and took her call in the corner, but her voice carried easily in the small room. "Again? And you don't have a driver why? We have ten field agents with us on this op. Just find a cop and get a police escort, ok? I dunno. Speed. Make an illegal left. Knock over a casino. Yeah, or drive around aimlessly for the next 12 hours until I put an APB out on your ass. Your choice. Yeah, 12. You keep arguing with me, it'll be 24. See you soon, boss." She had an amused smile on her face as she sat back down. "It'll be a few more minutes before my partner arrives."  
  
"Bad sense of direction?" Warrick asked, grinning. "He should get GPS."  
  
"Actually, I think he does," Sara laughed, with a 'welcome-to-my-world' expression on her face and a roll of her eyes. "So can you all lay out the cases for me briefly? I have a full and exhaustive briefing on the earlier cases prepped at our ops center, scheduled to start in a couple of hours, but I would like a quick overview." And so they got down to business, laying out the case and discussing evidence.  
  
"Look who I found wondering the halls," Brass announced from the door, breaking up their powwow. Sara was out of her seat in a second. "Jim!" Her hug almost bowled him over, and his normally sardonic look was replaced by a bright smile. He grasped her arms and looked her over, like a father checking to see how much his child has grown since he last saw her. "I thought you were flying in at midnight. I was going to pick you up at the airport."  
  
"Yeah, at the last minute, we flew in with the evidence instead of commercial."  
  
"Military?" Her rueful expression said it all. "Classy." He gave her another short hug, and said, "I have to get some paperwork done before the briefing. I'll see you later." He extended a hand to the tall, dark-haired man standing beside him. "Agent Cooper, always a pleasure."  
  
As soon as Sara turned to start making introductions, Nick interrupted her. "Brass knew you were coming?" His tone was somewhere between hurt and incredulous. She looked shame-faced. "Yeah, he managed to catch me on the phone yesterday. Really, Nick, I would have emailed and told you if I had had any time between finishing up a case and preparing to come here." Nick, she knew, could not stay mad for any length of time and it only took a couple more seconds for him to smile good-naturedly and point a finger at her. "Ok, but you are buying me dinner, little lady."  
  
As she made introductions, the reactions to her partner were pretty much what she expected: Catherine flirted, Warrick greeted him coolly, reserving judgment, and Grissom took him in as if he were a particularly gruesome body laid out on the autopsy table, reading subtle clues to put together the whole. Mark, on his end, evaluated everyone in his way, and immediately flashed Catherine a wide smile before meeting Sara's patently bland look and raised eyebrows.  
  
He immediately launched into his spiel, showing he was a match for Sara in the 'ignore the pleasantries and get down to business' department. "So I'm assuming Agent Sidle has filled you in on the basics. We're set up just down the road in a warehouse for our ops center, but we will probably ask for access to your lab facilities. We're here to work in cooperation, not competition, since we both want the same thing: to clear these cases. Agent Sidle's briefing will start in an hour. Any questions of me?" His recitation was patently bureaucratic, and didn't seem to warm the CSIs sitting around the table.  
  
"Just one," Gil volunteered. "When's your first press conference?" The smile on his face was familiar to Sara, the one he used to goad the sheriff and other authority figures in his typical, bland, zen-master Grissom way. Cooper looked startled and glanced over at Sara, who shook her head, to his apparent relief. "The media don't know we're here and hopefully they won't. There's absolutely no need for this to become a media circus. Anything else?"  
  
As everyone started to get up from the table, he turned to Sara. "So, Sidle, did you get information to finish up the case overview for the field agents?"  
  
"Yup." Her smile was just the wrong side of cheeky as she stood up and glanced at her watch. "And here I was looking forward to eleven hours of peace and quiet."  
  
"You would have missed me," he replied smugly. She just rolled her eyes and hoisted him out of his seat. Their exchange, however, was not missed by anyone, especially Gil, who watched them curiously, the narrowing of his eyes the only thing to mar his impassive expression. 


	2. Chapter 2

"So the killer burns his victims with an acidic compound prior to killing them, localized in the feet, hands, and face." A particular gruesome example of her words flashes onto the screen behind her, and the field agents in Sara's audience look a little sick. "Earlier agents called these the Wax Museum murders because of the smooth, waxy look of the skin after the burning. He destroys identifying marks on the victims, like the fingerprints on the hands and the facial features before killing them, suggesting he is trying not only to kill these women, but to erase their identity, their very existence. However, we have never found any links between the victims, so it appears the killer picks women at random based on physical characteristics and availability rather than who they are personally." She continued her briefing, pausing once when the field agents left after the overview, and got down to detail-oriented evidence discussion with Gil and his team, who remained. They brainstormed and talked most of the night, but as daylight was breaking over the horizon, they were no closer to a strategy to catch the killer than before.  
  
"Damn it," Nick voiced everyone's frustration. "I hate waiting for a killer to strike." He was too exhausted to sustain his outburst, however, and he sighed. "So what's our next step?"  
  
Sara looked to Gil at the head of the table, but he was silent, staring back at her expectantly. She then saw everyone was looking at her, and she realized the question had been addressed to her. She tried to hide her self- conscious smile behind a sip of coffee. "I'm actually not sure yet. We spent the last week reviewing the case files and existing evidence and putting the team into place, but we didn't come up with the plan for once we hit the ground here." She rotated her head around on her shoulders wearily, but her tone was confident when she spoke again. "We will have a plan of action by tonight. The data techs are still going over the last two months of purchases looking for any quality of HCl or possible industry sites that the suspect might have had access to the chemical. And we'll follow up on the suggestions presented here. Something should shake loose in the next few hours. If anything comes up, we'll be in touch. Until then, I think we're done here."  
  
Everyone slowly got up from the conference table, stretching and working the kinks out. Sara knew it was hard to sit for that long when you are used to having more changes of scenery and the hustle and bustle of the lab to keep your energy up. Up until that last minute, it had felt just like old times, all of them around a conference table talking through the evidence, trying to get ahead of the suspect. She smiled wryly at how easily she had slipped into the old habit of looking to Gris to take the lead, and the awkward moment that followed had highlighted all that had changed in the past few months since she had left. She dropped her face into her hands and rubbed vigorously, trying to rub some sense back into her head, letting her head rest in her palms for a couple of minutes afterwards, thinking through their next steps, her hair falling over her face like a barrier to shut out the rest of the ops center for a minute.  
  
A hand on her shoulder pulled her out of her reverie. "Sar?" Nick was shaking her shoulder gently, as if he thought she had fallen asleep. "We're," he jerked his head toward the rest of the team assembled in the doorway, "going to breakfast. You want to join us?"  
  
Sara knew her smile had to be huge, given Nick's dazzling smile back. "Food?"  
  
"Yeah, food. We could go to your favorite diner. You're buying."  
  
She bounced out of her chair. "You're on." Looking back over her shoulder, she called to her partner. "Coop? Food?" He was engrossed in reading over some paperwork. One of his best qualities, she thought, was that he actually enjoyed paperwork. "You go ahead. I'm heading back to the hotel for a swim. Check in with me when you get to the hotel." He must have felt her glare, because he looked up from his papers and winked. "You know how I worry."  
  
The diner hadn't changed, and breakfast reminded her why walking away from the Las Vegas crime lab had been the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. Leaving San Francisco had been easy, her life there an afterthought, but Vegas. She had been prepared to settle there, and while at first it had been rocky, she thought she had been making friends with her co-workers and starting to enjoy living in the desert. Working with Gil had been the best experience of her life and she had walked away from it. It was good to see that her co-workers didn't harbor any resentment toward her for leaving like she did; in fact, it almost seemed that they embraced her now more than they ever did when she worked with them. Catherine chatted with her about the more interesting cases at the lab while slipping in an incredible amount of gossip about Warrick, Nick, and Greg, and it was the best conversation Sara had ever had with the older CSI. Nick and Warrick jumped into the flow of Catherine's news regularly, to either defend themselves against her version or add particularly salient details about what Catherine was leaving out, especially about herself. Gil was the only one who didn't get into the act, sitting quietly. But Sara would catch him watching her when she wasn't paying attention, his eyes fixed on face or hands whenever she glanced his way. In his gaze, she felt like she was a particularly interesting breed of insect, which she knew was a form of flattery.  
  
The conversation turned, of course, to her work, especially once Catherine started asking questions about her partner. "Yeah, Coop and I, we work well together. He's intuitive, given to what I call flights of fancy and enormous leaps of logic, very theoretical and abstract, and I'm grounded and specific, always bringing it back to the evidence." She struggled for a minute for words, especially when she saw Grissom had perked up, leaning forward to catch her description. "Our first case, I thought we would never be able to work together again, but it ended up that our methods were more complementary than I would have imagined." She smiled at a few of their more memorable moments. "And we get along great – we have similar temperaments, so we argue, yell, and laugh in equal measure."  
  
"You definitely have a chemistry," Catherine said, fishing for an idea of their relationship beyond work. Sara grinned provocatively, and simply agreed with Catherine's sentiment, "Yeah, we do." Catherine's expression signaled her acknowledgement of Sara's deliberately noncommittal answer and she shrugged her shoulders to say 'can't blame a girl for trying.'  
  
"Busted," Warrick quipped from the other side of the table, to the hearty laughter of everyone around the table.  
  
Sara's cell vibrated against her hip at that moment, and her face twisted into a comical expression. "That your partner again?" She nodded. "Always." She glanced around apologetically. "Excuse me."  
  
"Yeah... You do know I'm not going to allow you to exercise when we are on a case anymore? You know that, right?" She chuckled. "Your girlish figure would survive, I'm sure. Yeah, I'll be there in 20. No, I just ate. Yeah. Make it 25. Hey, and order me up a carafe of coffee from room service. I'll need it because you aren't going to let me sleep anytime soon." She snapped the phone shut and gave everyone another apologetic look. "Sorry, guys, duty calls."  
  
"Really," Warrick's tone was teasing but skeptical, and Sara blushed to think how the end of that conversation sounded.  
  
"Yeah, actually. It's one of his quirks. That inductive thing I was telling you about? He's about to rapid-fire about three dozen theories about the case at me for the next, hmmm, three to four hours, probably. I'll shoot most of them down and in the end, we should have a couple more avenues to explore tonight." She grabbed the check before anyone could protest and waved as she headed toward the cashier. "See you tonight."  
  
"Interesting," Catherine said as they watched her depart. "She's changed, more outgoing." Nick nodded in agreement. "Yeah. She's even been dating in DC." Catherine looked intrigued by that bit of news. "So do we think she and Cooper are...?" Nick shook his head. "Not that I know of. But you were right about the chemistry, so..." He shrugged his shoulders and made a 'take- your-pick' expression. "Definitely," chimed in Warrick. Catherine glanced at him, surprised. "You think?" "Oh yeah." Catherine summarized the positions, "One yes, one no, one undecided," before turning to Grissom, who had been following the conversation with interest. "Gil?" He gave her a disgusted look. "Is it any of our business to be speculating on the nature of their relationship?" Catherine popped the last bit of her toast into her mouth. "No. But it is fun." 


	3. Chapter 3

It turned out they didn't have to wait until that night to see Sara again. Brass called them and reported that the feds were preparing to move on a possible suspect. When they arrived, Gil and the team got stopped behind the yellow tape. "Sara." Gil called, seeing the brunette talking with her partner just beyond the tape.  
  
"Oh, hey Gil. We were going to call you when the scene was secure. We got a hit on the HCl. Possible suspect." She stressed the word possible, indicating her doubt about the whole thing.  
  
The dark-haired agent called her away, and she ducked back underneath the tape. Sara pulled off a dark suede jacket as another agent passed her a flak vest. Sliding the vest over her head, she smoothed the Velcro on the side and settled the weight on her shoulders.  
  
"Sidle, you ready?" Cooper called.  
  
"Almost," she said absent-mindedly as she hung a badge around her neck and adjusted it. "You know how us girls like to accessorize," she said, giving him a quick grin that even Gil recognized as flirtatious. "Now, where's my lipstick?" She picked up a shotgun, cracked the barrel to check the load, snapped it closed, and cocked it in three quick, smooth motions. Her smile brightened as she hoisted the gun into a ready position.  
  
"It's a great color for you," Cooper deadpanned. "Brings out your eyes."  
  
"Damn." Nick's drawl exaggerated the word as he voiced his surprise.  
  
The light in Sara's eyes was entirely too amused as she glanced back over her shoulder. "I'm FBI now. This is one of the perks." Cooper motioned to her, talking into his mic quietly as the two ran forward. They passed Brass walking through the scene, and Sara gave him a 'Hiya, Jim" as she sprinted by. He stopped and quirked an eyebrow in her wake, but walked back to Gil and the others, nonplussed.  
  
"I wish our SWAT guys were that cute," he said, pulling out a walkie and tuned it to the Feds frequency, ignoring Gil's outraged glare and Catherine's amused smile. Quiet instructions squeaked through the speaker until the concussion grenade went off and they broke down the door. Nobody in the crowd needed the walkie to hear the shots that rang out. "Shots fired. Officer down," came a loud voice over the speaker. Another volley of shots rang out, and the voice continued the play-by-play: "Suspect down. EMTs requested."  
  
When the word that there was an officer down, Catherine saw Gil go pale, and she managed to catch him before he ducked under the tape. "It's ok," she told him tersely. "It's not Sara. And it's not your scene yet." He stood there, unhappily, as the scene played out in front of him, the ambulances heading in, and then finally, Sara and Cooper walking back toward them. There was a red streak on her face and blood splatter on her vest and in her hair, and his heart stopped until he realized it wasn't hers. She stripped off the vest and handed the shotgun off before motioning the team to join her.  
  
She leaned against the trunk of a police car, suddenly looking very tired. "Damn it, Sara." Cooper walked up to her with a barely contained fury. He exhaled audibly, slapped the car beside her, and then slumped against the car with Sara. "Why do you always have to be right?"  
  
"It's a flaw," she grinned. "I didn't just get this job for my looks." She explained to the rest of the team, "I didn't think this was our guy. Too easy, too sloppy. Didn't fit the profile. I think he was just a gun nut. Probably been waiting for the cops to bust down his doors for years to confirm some conspiracy theory about the death of JFK or something." She sighed. "Probably made his day. Until he died. Now he won't be able to write about it on his website."  
  
"Cynical, Sidle," Cooper rejoined.  
  
"Realistic." They shared a smile at an inside joke, but the moment was short before Sara snapped back into work mode. "They'll call us when they've finished securing the scene," she told Grissom. "They have a bomb squad in there looking for booby-traps and trip wires."  
  
Cooper pushed himself off the car wearily. "Want a cup of coffee?"  
  
Her smile was tired. "Yeah." Her fingers touched the side of her face, noticing the stickiness. "And a wet towel." Her cell phone rang, and as soon as she answered it, she snapped her fingers rapidly until Cooper returned to her side. They locked eyes as she listened, and she motioned to a van with her head. He nodded and sprinted off.  
  
"It won't work. You can't trace the call," her caller said.  
  
"We're the federal government. We like exercises in futility." She turned around and scanned the crowd, trying to memorize the faces she saw there and looking for anyone with a cell phone out.  
  
"Do you think I'd be stupid enough to be in the crowd, talking to you on the phone?"  
  
"Look, I really don't know. We haven't been formally introduced." She caught Warrick's eye and gestured to the camera in his hands, and then the crowd behind him. He caught her meaning at once and started to photograph the crowd.  
  
"Oh, I've met you, Miss Sidle. For now, you can call me John, as in John Doe." The certainty with which he said he had met her sent a chill down her spine, but she didn't let anything show in her expression.  
  
"We met? Care to remind me of the details?"  
  
"All in good time, Miss Sidle, all in good time."  
  
She sighed, audibly. "Look, if this is just a personal call, I'm afraid I have to get back to work."  
  
"Smart-ass. I like that. I enjoyed the lipstick comment, btw."  
  
"Nobody likes a smart-ass," she replied sardonically. Cooper walked back in the middle of that comment and the side of his mouth quirked into a grin.  
  
"We'll talk soon, Miss Sidle. In the meantime, I'll be watching you." The other end went dead, and Sara snapped her phone closed.  
  
"Boyfriend?" Cooper quipped, a bland look on his face.  
  
"Stalker," was her dry rejoinder.  
  
He shook his head in mock-disgust. "You and nut cases, Sar. What's up with that?" he asked as she motioned him closer.  
  
"You're just jealous." Their heads together, they whispered back and forth for a few moments before he strode off and Sara turned and looked all around the area, a calculating look on her face. "Warrick, can I?" she asked, pointing to the camera. She adjusted for wide angle and started taking pictures of the surrounding houses and hills, her face grim.  
  
"So was that the killer on the phone?" Catherine asked when she stopped taking pictures.  
  
"Maybe." Sara popped the film out and collected the rolls Warrick had taken, dropping them in a ziplock. A walkie squeaked at her waist, informing her that the scene was secure. "Ok, CSIs coming in," she said. Sara stopped Gil as she was about to duck under the tape. "Gil, can I borrow Nick for something?" she asked, holding up the ziplock. He nodded his assent and headed to the scene as Sara caught Nick by the arm and pulled him close. "I need you to run this to the AV guys." She handed over her cell phone, hiding it under the film. "I recorded the whole conversation. Get a copy and then get this back to me in case he calls back." He nodded. "He got my work number somehow, and recently too. See if you can run down anything."  
  
"Of course. Anything for my girl," Nick drawled, his grin tarnished by the look of concern on his face. He started walking back to SUVs parked nearby.  
  
"Nick. Either ride with a uniform or have one ride with you back to the lab." He looked at her questioningly. "Nobody goes alone until we catch this guy."  
  
Her burst of energy carried her past the agents milling around the door and through the bashed-in door of the apartment. Cooper was there in the background, talking to Brass and Catherine. Her mind was churning a million miles a minute as she planned her next steps.  
  
"Smith," she snapped at the agent closest to the door. "Get me a new phone, off the books. No req, no paperwork." He nodded but still stood in the doorway. Sara waved her hand impatiently. "Now?"  
  
She pointed at another agent, a young blonde woman. "And, uh..." "Fordham," she supplied helpfully. "Sorry, Agent Fordham. Get a list of every news camera that was out there and get copies of every inch of footage they shot at the scene. Don't tell them why. Get me stills of every face there and run them to see if we can ID anyone."  
  
"Yes ma'am."  
  
She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache, and she missed the glances that passed between Warrick, Gil, and Catherine at her tone and demeanor as she ordered the other agents around. Almost talking to herself, she explained, "Nick's working the phone lead. I recorded the conversation and the caller had to get my number from somewhere." Her head snapped up as Cooper listened to something on his walkie. "Anything on the flyover?"  
  
He shook his head in the negative. "Ok, I want a full team to sweep this entire area until they find the exact spot where he was hiding during that phone call. He saw me scan the crowd; he had to have been watching from somewhere," she explained wearily. "And have someone sweep for electronics. He may not have stuck around in person."  
  
"I'll take care of it," Cooper said seriously. "What about you? What's your next step?"  
  
"I am going back to the warehouse and go through the evidence again." She rubbed her face with her palms, trying to revive herself. "I'm missing something."  
  
He gave her a forbidding look. "Sidle, we have over fifty boxes of evidence collected on this case. You are one person. You can't do this alone."  
  
"He made this personal, Coop. I'm just returning the favor."  
  
"At least let me get a team of agents..."  
  
"I've had a team of agents. They didn't do me any good." She indicated the people around the room, and said quietly. "I've got the best criminalists in the country right here in this room. They're better than the whole FBI."  
  
He sighed. "Ok. I'll set up a support team—they'll have dinner and coffee there in an hour." He headed to the door and paused right in the entranceway. "I'll be there as well."  
  
"Going to babysit me?"  
  
"Yeah," he said, seriously.  
  
Sara then turned to Gil and requested their help, laying out her plan in short, clipped phrases. He nodded. "We're finished up here. We'll be there within the hour." Her smile conveyed her appreciation, but her eyes were troubled.  
  
"Hey, what about me?" Brass asked. "Am I invited? I heard there would be free food."  
  
"I need another babysitter, huh?"  
  
"Nothing against your boy there, Sara, but..." He shrugged.  
  
"The more the merrier," she replied.  
  
"Sidle," Cooper called from the door. "Get over here." She walked over with a puzzled look at his tone, and then saw the towel he was brandishing. As her former colleagues watched with amused or shocked expressions, he preceded to carefully wipe the streaks of blood off her face before dropping the towel over her head and giving her hair a vigorous rub-down, eliciting a giggle from Sara as she tried to avoid his ministrations. "You look like shit, Sidle. A shower and change of clothes before you end up at that warehouse." He whipped around, pointing to the blonde agent from earlier. "Agent Fordham, you are on Sidle-watch. Drive her to her hotel, stay with her in the room, and make sure she gets to the warehouse while the food is still hot." Glaring at Sara's attempt to protest, he disappeared out the door.  
  
She turned back to her friends in the room, a resigned expression on her face. She caught Warrick's amused grin, and glared at him to keep his mouth shut. "I'll see you in an hour?"  
  
----------------  
  
The evidence was no more telling as they scanned through the boxes and boxes of evidence, looking for something that had been missed. When the CSI team returned in the evening for another night of evaluating the evidence, they saw a familiar sight: Sara hunched over a pile of papers in the same clothes they had seen her in that morning, surrounded by empty coffee cups. Nick couldn't control his smile as he recognized the determined scowl on her face. They settled in for another long night and worked steadily for a couple of hours.  
  
With a muttered explicative, Sara tossed a folder down, watching as it slid across the table and flew off the other side, papers spilling everywhere. Cooper rounded the table. "Feel better?" Her glare at him promised violence. "Yeah." His hands rested on her shoulders for a moment, and then her started to massage the muscles in her neck. "Sar, you've been here for twenty eight straight hours. You are going back to the hotel."  
  
"There's cots here," she replied, rolling her head around on her neck as his hands loosen muscles long tightened. Her head hung down, almost touching the table, as he continued his ministrations.  
  
He shook his head firmly, even though she couldn't see it. "Real bed, real sleep."  
  
"Mark..."  
  
"And don't try to sweet talk me." Her eyes opened and she caught his eye over her shoulder.. "You always use my first name when you are about to bat your eyelashes and lay on the famous Sidle charm." She glared up at him with narrowed eyes in complete denial. "Yes, you do. And it's not going to work this time."  
  
She capitulated in the face of his apparent determination. "One more hour?"  
  
"One more hour. If you try anything, I'll knock you over the head and drag you out of here myself."  
  
"Romantic," she quipped.  
  
"I'm a romantic guy."  
  
Her snort of amusement answered his assertion. "Yeah, that's what all the girls say." She seemed to recall something she had forgotten. "You never told me how your date went, the one you had right before we left DC," she said conversationally.  
  
"It was coffee, not a date."  
  
"Ohhhh, one of those," she replied knowingly, putting a subtle emphasis on the last word.  
  
"Hey! What does that mean?"  
  
"Just because you sleep with a girl before you actually buy her food or a beverage doesn't somehow make it 'not a date.'" She explained patiently as she typed a query into the laptop in front of her.  
  
"Hey," he exclaimed in mock-indignation. "And besides, you would know."  
  
Sara leaned back in her chair, throwing an arm over the back as she smiled up at him. "Hey, my dates always buy me dinner," she said smugly, the implications of her statement not lost on anyone in the room.  
  
"Slut."  
  
"Ho." She swung at him, causing him to dance back out of her reach as she turned back to her stack of files. "Go away, I'm working."  
  
"One hour."  
  
"Yeah, yeah." She immediately got engrossed in her file, and missed the impressed look Catherine shot Warrick. Cooper, however, did not miss the glare Grissom directed at him, and he couldn't help but smirk back at the older man. Catherine caught this exchange too, and glanced at Sara, oblivious to everything as she stared at her computer screen. 


	4. Chapter 4

Sara returned to the warehouse looking freshly showered and slightly less haggard after five hours, just as Cooper called them to a conference table to go over progress in the case. Nick started, "The phone number was a bust—work phone numbers of federal agents aren't listed for access outside the Bureau and we couldn't find any evidence of a hacker accessing the records in the last three months. External calls are routed through the FBI switchboard, so the caller couldn't have called and gotten the number through that approach either. So we have no idea how he got the number."  
  
"And Agent Fordham and I didn't find anything in the crime scene photos," Warrick chipped in. "We compared before and after, and found some people who had left in the interval, but we ran them and nothing came up. Ditto for the stills through the face recognition database."  
  
"And there were no identifying traces from the phone call recording either. He—and it definitely was a he—was inside an enclosed space, a car, when he made the call. The car wasn't running and there was very little background noise." Catherine finished her recitation with a look of disgust at the lack of evidence.  
  
"Which would be why we didn't find any evidence of the suspect hiding somewhere near the crime scene when we searched the area," Cooper confirmed. "But we did get some new evidence, just a few minutes ago."  
  
Sara perked up. "That FedEx delivery? Was it from headquarters? Let me see." Cooper looked down at the manila envelope in his hand, his fingers tightening on the paper. He didn't give her the file.  
  
Sara's eyes traveled up from the envelope to meet Cooper's eyes. "What?" Her slow delivery of the word indicated her suspicions. "They are pictures. Of you," he confirmed.  
  
She shook her head, not seeing the cause of his concern. "We knew it was possible he was stalking me. This just confirms it."  
  
"They aren't pictures of you in Vegas." Her puzzled expression deepened as she tried to understand what he was trying to tell her. "They are pictures of you in DC." Her expression shifted on one of surprise, and then shock as he continued. "And in Boston. And in Charlestown. I should have suspected it as soon as he called your work phone," he finished unhappily. He didn't tell her of the other photos, of the victims as they underwent what looked like days of torture, and the last one with the chilling message, "Soon,"  
  
Sara took up where he left off. "Work phone. Pictures from our last two cases, where travel was booked through the Bureau, not my private credit cards." Realization dawned on her face and she looked sick. "Access to crime scene details on a cold case assigned to me." She glanced over her shoulder at boxes of evidence.  
  
"Wait a sec," Catherine interjected. "Are you saying the suspect is FBI?" she asked incredulously.  
  
An ugly realization gripped Grissom. "So we're definitely dealing with a copy cat. But he's not copying them to reenact the previous crimes, but to bring Sara within reach."  
  
"Those women died because of me," Sara stated, her voice stripped of emotion. She knew, soon, she would be sick, and she started to plan her path to the bathroom.  
  
Grissom continued, following his thoughts to the logical questions. "But why Sara? And why here?"  
  
The nausea retreated somewhat as she considered his questions. "Well, I'm not known for getting along famously with my co-workers." Catherine shot her a stricken look as she realized she was included in Sara's painful admission. "But this seems a little..."  
  
"Excessive?" Cooper volunteered.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Then there's some other motivation," Grissom stated. Sara shook her head. "That's not important right now." She caught his look. "We have a timeline. Whoever it is had to be traveling at the same time Cooper and I were, and has been in Vegas for the last three weeks. So our suspect has left the Bureau recently or has been taking vacation days or..."  
  
"Was assigned to those two cases with us," Cooper volunteered, and he saw another wave of nausea come over Sara at the thought. "Can't rule anything out," he said apologetically.  
  
"Can we get access to personnel records?"  
  
"We're working on it. I have to get the director's approval, but I think I can."  
  
"So while we're waiting," Grissom began, but his train of thought was interrupted by the ringing of Sara's cell phone. Her lips tightened perceptibly as she stood, slowly, and walked a ways away from the table.  
  
"Sidle." In the hush that had descended on the warehouse, even her low voice carried.  
  
"Did you get my pictures? Did you like them?" His voice was subtly distorted again, but the gloating tone was obvious. It never failed to surprise Sara that people got enjoyment out of hurting others, and now he was gunning for her. She reined in her anger with difficulty, and replied nonchalantly, "You know, the composition really wasn't that good – I wasn't in center frame for all of them. And some bad lighting – you might want to check out a photography course at your local community college."  
  
The laugher on the other end was appreciative. "I wasn't trying to impress you with my photography skill. I just wanted to make sure you know."  
  
"Know what?" She knew that he wanted her to ask, but it made him think that he had the upper hand. And the question got her closer to his motives. She was so focused on the game of cat-and-mouse that she wasn't aware of the worried eyes following her every step as she paced back and forth across the concrete floor. She wasn't even aware she was pacing.  
  
"Know that I know you. I know everything about you."  
  
Her snort of derision sounded on the line. "You followed me around and snapped some pictures. That doesn't mean you know me."  
  
"But I do know you. I know you... intimately. Beth."  
  
In a single moment, the world around Sara took a sickening lurch. She had halted her pacing, her body coming to a dead stop that drew everyone's eyes to her. She had heard the expression about 'blood freezing in veins,' but now she knew how that felt. She fought to get herself under control as her silence was transmitted to her caller, but a roaring in her head made that difficult.  
  
His laughter was triumphant, as were his words. "I thought that would get your attention."  
  
"Yeah, you got my attention." She got the words out through clenched teeth, showing less anger in her tone than she would have imagined possible. She stood stock still in the middle of the floor, her hand clenching the phone so hard Nick was surprised she didn't break it, the picture of contained fury. Whatever had just happened, he reasoned, the caller didn't know what he had just unleashed. He's going to find out, he thought to himself.  
  
"There is one thing you don't know about me."  
  
"What's that?" Her caller's voice was amused, and curious. He was so sure he had the upper hand.  
  
"That's what I'm going to do to you when I find you, you sick fuck." The fury leaked into her low voice, the words quiet, controlled, and deadly. "When I'm through with you, there won't be enough of your body to fill an ashtray, much less identify." Shocked looks flew around the table behind her. "I want you to think about that while you sit there, waiting for me to find you." She let the pause stretch for a moment, knowing she had just put him a little off balance as well. "Be seeing ya." With that, she snapped the cell phone shut, ending the call. She stood, unmoving, staring at the cell phone in her hand.  
  
Cooper was the first to react. He reached her side, and reached for the phone. "Sara..." She stepped away from him, avoiding his hand, and flung the cell phone against the wall with all her strength. It shattered, the crash deafening in the quiet. "That was evidence," Cooper said, chiding her gently, hoping that an appeal to her work might bring her out of whatever it was that was gripped her.  
  
Her voice, however, belied his impression that she was in shock or had lost control of her emotions. "No, that was a recording of me threatening a suspect." She shrugged a shoulder. "Now, there's just witnesses."  
  
"What happened?" he asked, but she ignored him, striding back to the table silently and reclaiming her seat, resting her chin on her steepled hands, her eyes staring and distant. Wherever she was, Catherine could see, it wasn't here. She resisted the temptation to ask, knowing that asking was an exercise in futility. Sara would tell them or she wouldn't, in her own time and nobody else's. 


	5. Chapter 5

A long exhalation signaled the end to the long silence. Sara dropped her head, ran her hands through her hair, and then abruptly looked up, a small smirk twisting her mouth as she saw everyone trying to look away quickly and pretend that they hadn't been staring at her. The ghost of a smile disappeared immediately, as the lines of her face pulled into a hard mask of anger. "Coop. Get access to those personnel records. Same search as before, but filter by agents who attended Harvard or were in Boston in the years1989 and 1994."  
  
"Sara...?" He fished for an explanation.  
  
Her eyes were hard and cold as she stared at him down the length of the conference table. "Just do it. Get me pictures." She kept her head immobile, chin propped up in hands, but twitched her eyes over to Grissom. "At least we know why Las Vegas. You may be a target too, but I don't think so."  
  
Grissom rolled his chair closer to the end of the table, where she sat. "Sara," he began, his voice gentle and comforting, "what happened at Harvard?" She seemed to have retreated again, her eyes unfocused on a spot somewhere near the center of the table. He reached up and took her hand, surprising himself as well as Sara when he entwined their fingers together and squeezed her hand tightly. "Sara?"  
  
"It's... nothing you haven't already suspected." Her words ran together as she breathed out the sentence. Although she knew other people were listening, she seemed to be talking only to Gil, the blue of his eyes a comforting expanse, like waves of an ocean buoying her. "The first time...I was a freshman. I didn't tell anyone, I didn't know how." She paused, considering how such a thing might have been possible. Catherine's eyes were dark as she heard the pain and despair in Sara's voice and she knew she wasn't the only one around the table planning the demise of the person who had done this to Sara. "The second time, I reported it. They didn't catch him." Her eyes narrowed. "But I will now," she said with certainty in her voice.  
  
"You think this is the same suspect?"  
  
"It is."  
  
"How do you know?"  
  
"Beth." Her eyes squeezed shut as she spoke, the first flicker of emotion besides anger showing in her face. When she opened her eyes again, Gil's puzzled expression prompted her to continue. "My middle name is, or was, Elizabeth. Mom always liked that better, so growing up, I was Beth. Until my freshman year at college. Only one person has called me that since then."  
  
"Sara," Nick choked out, his eyes bright with tears. She knew he empathized, having gone through a similar experience himself. Her smile was gentle, like she was trying to comfort him. "Thanks, Nick. It's ok. I made my peace with it a long time ago." She saw the doubt in his eyes. "Really. I decided a long time ago it wouldn't control me." Another silence stretched around the table, until Cooper got up and walked around the table.  
  
He stood beside Sara. "You can't be a part of this investigation anymore. I need you to identify the suspect, and then let us do the rest." His reluctance at the steps he had to take was clear. "I have to ask for your badge and your gun now." She met his eyes calmly, with none of the anger that might have been expected. Catherine watched impassively, immediately suspicious of Sara's quick acceptance. As Sara put her gun and badge on the table, Catherine realized that she's still going after this guy, gun or no gun. As Cooper picked up her holster and badge, he dropped another holster in front of her. He met her look with a bland expression of his own. "You are still targeted by a serial killer. I'm not letting you walk around without protection." He indicated the gun. "It's legal, registered to you, and I expedited the paperwork for you to carry it concealed."  
  
"You forged my name," she said, with some semblance of her normal sense of humor. "That's a federal offense."  
  
"Then I hope the FBI doesn't catch me, then," he retorted dryly. He rested a hand on her shoulder, patting reassuringly. She rested her hand on his, but her mind had drifted off again, and she was once again oblivious to attentions of the two men gazing at her with concern.  
  
Quiet conversation started up around the warehouse as the work on the investigation continued around the island of silence at the conference table. The CSI team was officially off the clock, but no one wanted to leave. It took a long time to get access to the personnel records, but finally Cooper delivered fifteen grainy photos to Sara, who spread them out on a light table in the corner of the room, her back to the people who watched her anxiously. Catherine found her gaze moving between Sara, Gil, and Cooper as the two men were obviously fighting an urge to go the immobile figure, a dark swath outlined by the lights shining through the table. Cooper seemed to make up his mind first, and he stood, drawing all eyes to him, but instead of joining Sara, he headed over to a communication center set up in the corner and spoke quietly with one of the technicians.  
  
The field of battle apparently left to him, Gil finally stood, with jerky, uncoordinated movements, and joined Sara. He stood a pace behind her, as if his feet had gotten him to that point before the use of his body abandoned him. He found his voice, however, and asked, "Recognize anyone?"  
  
"Do you?" she responded, answering his question with a question. "He was in your seminar with me," she clarified. Startled, he leaned forward and looked over the photos attentively, but none were familiar. "No." He paused, remembering an earlier, and much happier time. "But then, I don't think I noticed anything that semester except this incredibly bright physics graduate student with beautiful brown eyes who kept asking me out for coffee after class." The admission seemed to revive her a little; she sniffed in amusement. His voice lost the gentle teasing tone he had given it when he continued. "I always wondered why she abruptly stopped asking me out."  
  
She sighed, and reached down to tap a picture with her index finger. "Now we both know." His hand reached up, like it wasn't even a part of him, to press into the small of her back, to support or soothe, he wasn't sure. He wasn't even sure she noticed the touch. They stood like that for a long time, and Gil was just about to say something when Sara whipped the photo off the table with one smooth motion and strode over to Cooper. He stared at the photo in his hand for a moment before meeting her eyes; he knew she was thinking, like he was, that they had worked at least one case with him and, while not close, were friendly enough colleagues. The bleak look in her eyes unnerved him. "Sara, I'm going to send Agent Fordham with you to the hotel." She didn't say anything, just nodded blankly, and followed Fordham through the door. He saw Catherine's narrowed eyes as she watched Sara disappear through the door. Nick was picking up his jacket, telling Grissom that he was going back to the hotel to stay with Sara, when Fordham came back into the room to tell them that Sara had jumped into her own rental and left. 


	6. Chapter 6

Cooper's cell phone was in his hand in an instant. "Sara? What are you doing? You know where he is, don't you? Sara! You can't go after him without backup. Damn it!" He yelled the last in frustration as she hung up on him. He swore at the phone at some length as he strode back to the agent in the communications center. "Do it," he told him, "and let me know when you have a location." His glare took in another agent. "Is the team ready?"  
  
"Five minutes." Cooper nodded, heading back to the CSIs staring at him. "We'll have a location on her shortly." He shrugged. "I thought she might try something, so I slipped a tracer on her." He caught Catherine's impressed, and approving, expression, and he grinned in response. "I have been working with her for nine months," he said by way of explanation. "She's a handful, sometimes, especially now that she's field-rated."  
  
"Agent Cooper, we got her. She's... stopped outside your hotel."  
  
Puzzlement crossed his face. "She's gone back to the hotel? Is she going in?"  
  
The agent shook his head. "She's stationary."  
  
"Ok, send the team and ops van to our location when it's ready." He turned to the CSIs watching him closely. "I guess there's no way you would stay here while we go secure the area?" he asked half-heartedly, and his mouth quirked at Catherine's expression. "Guess not."  
  
------------  
  
Agent Cooper's car and the CSI SUV pulled up behind Sara's rental in a back alley a block from the hotel, Sara's figure clearly outlined in the headlights of their vehicles. She stood, propped against the car, her arms folded firmly across her chest as she watched everyone pile out of their vehicles. They approached cautiously. "So where is it, Coop?" He pretended he didn't understand her question, and her eyes narrowed angrily. "It isn't in the car, I know that." She paused, expectantly, but he still didn't answer. "Where is it?"  
  
"Were you leading us on a wild goose chase to determine the existence of a trace?" This time, it was her turn to be silent, her position against the car unchanged and unyielding. Commanding. It was not a side of her that she had always shown or used, particularly in her time in Vegas, but her persistence and stubbornness had already become legendary in the Bureau. Leaving Vegas had rid her of the need to seek approval as vigorously as before and given her sense of determination a boost, and now she wielded it relentlessly.  
  
Cooper knew that look, and he relented with one last concerned glance into her eyes, motioning for her to give him the sidearm. She passed it to him, butt-end first, and watched as he pulled the clip and peeled off rounds until he held up one that wasn't like the others. She nodded appreciatively. "Tricky. Any others?" Her tone was warning, and he shook his head and sighed.  
  
"Are you going to run off again?"  
  
"No need. He's in the hotel."  
  
"Educated guess?"  
  
She shook her head in a firm negative. "Personality quirk. He's staying in one of the rooms on either side of our suite, probably the one on the right if he could get it." She noticed the questions in everyone's eyes, and her mouth twisted into a bitter smile. "He liked... to stay close. He always sat by me in both classes we took together." Nick looked sick at the matter-of- fact way she said that, and she could tell he was worried about her. He wasn't wrong to be scared, she thought, as she took a deep breath and told her partner, "I'm going in." Cooper immediately opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. "I waited for back-up. But I'm going in."  
  
"Sara, you can't...."  
  
"We don't know what he has in that hotel room and we don't know if there's a third victim. For all we know, he's got someone else or he's booby- trapped the room in case we go in. And he knows our ops manual." She took another deep breath. "But he'll come out for me. He'll come after me."  
  
"That's what I'm afraid of."  
  
"It's the best way."  
  
Nick couldn't stand it anymore. "You going in there like Rambo is the best way? Are you kidding me?" He shouted at Sara before rounding on Cooper. "This cannot be how you run operations in the Bureau, using your agents as bait."  
  
Cooper faced off with the younger man while catching the even more deadly look on Grissom's face over Nick's shoulder. "No, it isn't, but this is an FBI op and we'll decide how to run it," he told him coldly.  
  
"You... you're considering her insane suggestion." Nick's Texas drawl got more pronounced as he yelled at Cooper. "Aren't you?"  
  
Cooper met Grissom's eye over Nick's shoulder before staring down the Texan. "Agent Sidle is not a member of your team anymore, but an agent, fully field-rated. We'll decide her role in this operation." He turned and stalked to the side of his car, motioning to Sara with a curt wave of his hand. Sara's expression as she looked at Nick was sad, but determined, and her eyes pleaded with him to not make it harder for her to do her job. She could not meet Grissom's eyes as she slid off the car and followed Cooper.  
  
The argument lasted for some time, long enough for the communications van to pull up and get situated, and consisted of yelling on Cooper's part and calm, measured responses from Sara. Regardless of what he had told Nick, Cooper looked like he had no intention of letting her risk herself. But finally, he nodded, the very picture of reluctance as Sara was the very picture of firm resolve.  
  
Sara walked over to where Nick was standing, his face stormy as he glared at Cooper. "Nick." He refused to look at her as she caught his hand and gripped it tightly. "Nick, you have to trust me. I know what I'm doing. This is my job." She knew Grissom was listening to every word, and she made sure her words projected to everyone, including Brass who didn't look any less stormy. "I'm not risking myself unnecessarily. Ok?" Nick's gaze was fixated on the ground, but he nodded his head slowly, still not meeting her eyes. She gave his hand another squeeze before heading to the communications van. From their vantage point, she seemed to be giving orders to the rest of the team while adding an extra holster, a telescoping baton, and handcuffs to her belt. Cooper came up behind her and hung her badge around her neck and said something that made her laugh. He punched her shoulder playfully, before his face turned serious and seemed to be lecturing her, if her eye roll was any indication.  
  
As Sara headed to the van with the SWAT team, she paused behind Brass. "Hey. Wanna go for a ride?" She indicated the van with her head, her fierce grin meeting his as he caught her meaning. She shrugged. "You can be the PD observer. But, you wear a vest, stay in the back, and don't make a move until Agent Washington tells you to. Understand?" He muttered his assent, happy to be back in his self-assigned role as her protector.  
  
Cooper motioned the rest of the team over to the communications van, meeting the anger in their eyes calmly. "I don't like it any more than you do. But she's right, it's the best way," he explained. "She can use his personal stake in her against him."  
  
"And risk getting herself killed in the process?" Catherine retorted. "Sounds like a good trade off to me."  
  
"It's a risk we face every day." He turned back to the van, and indicated the speaker. "Want to listen in?"  
  
--------------  
  
Sara stood alone in the hallway of the hotel, her steps muffled by the thick carpeting. The floor had been cleared except for the room they suspected the perp was in, and she stood just to the right of the door, flattened against the wall. The SWAT team was waiting in the stairwell for her signal, so there was no one to see her close her eyes and take a deep breath before opening her cell phone.  
  
The phone inside the suite rang once, twice, and for a second, she thought maybe he wasn't in the room. "Hello?" She couldn't tell by the voice on the phone; his voice had been disguised during their earlier conversations, and she let him repeat himself before speaking.  
  
"Guess who."  
  
"What? Who is this?" There was a note of suspicion and confusion, but it didn't mask the alarm and fear underneath.  
  
"It's Beth." She relished saying the name, hoping to make him feel the panic, the trapped feeling, for once. "I told you I would find you."  
  
"Beth? I don't know any Beth. I think you have the wrong room." The confused words were in direct contradiction to the angry tone in his voice, and her mouth twisted into a triumphant grin.  
  
"Sounds like you aren't ready to renew our acquaintance." Her tone was mock- hurt. "What, you didn't think I would figure it out this fast? By the way," she continued conversationally, "I'm right outside your door." She rapped on the door three times with her knuckles, making sure the phone picked up the sound.  
  
He dropped the charade and snarled, "Cooper figured it out, not you, bitch. If you really are out there, you should just come right in. You and the team."  
  
Her laughter was mocking. "I figured out where you were an hour after you tipped your hand. Of course, I was always smarter than you. In physics, forensics...."  
  
"You think everybody didn't know you were sleeping with your professors to get your grades? All those men in your bed, Fletcher, Grissom, Cooper," he spat out the names, "and you pretend it's because you are smarter?"  
  
"Oh, I am smarter. And better. It must have been hard for you. Nine months at the Bureau and I have a solve rate as a rookie that experienced agents would kill to have. At least you would." Her tone was deliberately blasé as she taunted him, trying to hit upon the right jibe to provoke him to come out after her.  
  
"Cooper's solve rate, not yours."  
  
She chuckled. "After all you did to try to take me down, and I show up at your job and I'm on the fast track. Good thing you went all mass murderer or I would have been your boss soon."  
  
His snarl was one of inarticulate rage, and she braced for action, but he got himself under control. "I fixed you. You stopped your disgusting affair with Grissom. Left Harvard."  
  
She took a deep breath, steadying herself, as images of that last semester at Harvard washed over her, the happiness in finding a vocation and mentor, which turned to such pain and frustration. "You did nothing. I had already transferred to a forensics program in California. I was tired of physics. After all, once you've reached the top of your field, where's the challenge?" Her voice was mocking, "But then, you wouldn't know what that's like, now would you?"  
  
Snap. The sound of the deadbolt being drawn back in the door beside her caught her off-guard and she slid a few feet back from the door, her eyes and gun trained chest-high. "If you are outside, you know I just unlocked and cracked the door. Why don't you come in and we'll have a much more civilized conversation."  
  
"Civilized?" she sneered. "That's good. I should have known you wouldn't come out and face me. Rape is a coward's crime, after all."  
  
"I just wanted what you were giving to every one else," he retorted.  
  
"I'm actually beginning to doubt it was you. You're such a pussy, I really doubt you even have balls," she baited, feeling like she was rapidly running out of material.  
  
"Come in and see for yourself."  
  
She sighed audibly, knowing he and everyone else could hear it. "Ok, have it your way. I'm hanging up and coming in." She snapped the phone shut, glad she didn't have an ear receiver to hear Cooper yelling as she inched down the hallway.  
  
---------------  
  
In the communications van, Cooper and Gil had listened grimly while Nick paced behind Catherine and Warrick. The exchange had been disturbing for all of them to listen to, but when Sara announced she was going into the room, everyone froze. There was a loud bang of a door slamming back on its hinges, shots fired, and the heavy thud of a body hitting the ground. 


	7. Chapter 7

After closing the phone, Sara had dropped it in the hallway to free her hand to grab the baton. She flipped it to extend it to full length, keeping it alongside her leg as she inched forward. A few beads of sweat gathered on her forehead as the tension built in her stomach. I hope this works, she thought to herself, as she positioned herself against the wall.  
  
With one quick move, she punched the hotel door back with the baton, swinging it back on the hinges and slamming it against the door stop. Gunfire from the darkened hotel room rang out, and she dodged back and to the side, landing heavily on the soft carpet and quietly swearing as she bit her lip. She froze in position, laying on her back with her gun steady in both hands to cover the door. One breath, two, and then the door creaked on its hinges and she pulled the trigger, snapping off three quick shots, and then another burst. In a remote corner of her brain, she found the calmness of her voice surprising as she ordered the SWAT team to move, almost as surprising as how steady the gun barrel seemed as she waited, her heart beat pounding in her ears. One team member, then a second, reached the door of the hotel room and were inside before she lowered her gun, her eyes closing and head falling back at the same time.  
  
She lay like that for just a moment, letting the tension drain out of her, before snapping the safety on her gun and pulling herself into an upright position, steadying herself against the wall as her legs threatened to give out. Brass was beside her then, clamping a hand around her arm and saying her name in a loud voice. She took one last, deep breath before pushing her hair back from her face and straightening. "I'm fine, Jim, thanks." Shaking his hand off of her arm, she crossed to the door, watching as the EMTs worked on the man she had shot. Two of the first three shots she had fired had hit his arm and shoulder, and the second volley had torn through his leg, just as she had planned, and he looked like he might survive. Good, she thought as a feral smile graced her face, he'll have a long time to remember this.  
  
Sara turned from the gory scene in front of her to see Gil standing dead center of the hallway, staring at her. Raw emotions played over his features, his thoughts heartbreakingly clear. She saw the unshed tears that made his eyes a beautiful liquid blue, the deep breathes that labored through his whole body, and the concern etched in every line of his face. He had been scared to death for her, and emotion drove him the rest of the way to sweep her up in an all-encompassing hug, one arm pressing around her waist tightly while the other squeezed her shoulders almost painfully. She let her arms wrap around his comforting frame, breathing in the chemical and soap scent that was essentially Grissom.  
  
She wasn't sure how long he held her like that as she lost herself in the unexpected sensation she had dreamed about for years. It was eternal, endless, and yet entirely too short. She did know he recovered first, eased his grip, and finally pulled back a few inches to look at her. The instant she looked at his face, saw the guarded, impassive expression, she knew. That moment of weakness was already being rationalized, compartmentalized, and forgotten, some memory to be dredged up to be savored, if he even did that. She released her hold and stepped back, seeing a sad expression flit across his face as she left his arms. They stood just a foot apart, but Sara knew that if she looked down at her feet, she would see the gulf between them gaping beneath tips of her shoes. She closed her eyes as a wave of vertigo hit, and she stumbled back against the wall.  
  
"Sara?" And there he was again, his arm solicitously wrapped around her waist to hold her steady, the other catching her shoulder. "Are you ok?"  
  
She swallowed against the nausea rising in her throat and said, "Fine. Just a reaction to the sudden lack of tension in my body." He nodded understandably, and she hoped he believed it. She just wished it were the truth. Almost as much as she wished she didn't want him to go on holding her, that she could be weak and dizzy forever if it would keep him by her side. She sighed, letting go of that impossibility, and straightened, shaking away the last of the cobwebs.  
  
An agent, who had obviously been waiting for just such an opening, stepped forward to ask her a few questions about the shooting and to take her gun. "Standard procedure," he said apologetically, but she smiled and waved his explanations aside. It wasn't until he turned and walked away that she realized that Grissom had stayed, his arm still protectively circling her waist. She didn't question it, just stood there watching the aftermath, her eyes following the stretcher as the EMTs wheeled it out of the room and down the hallway past her, her face expressionless.  
  
Grissom's arm tightened around her waist, pulling her thoughts back to the rapidly clearing hallway. "Come on. Let's go," he whispered near her ear, his warm breath heating her neck. She let him guide her along the hallway, luxuriating in the feeling all the while knowing later she could chalk up this moment of weakness to emotional and physical exhaustion. Just like Gil, probably, she thought, glancing at his face, trying to read his expression. The guarded expression was gone, and he looked... happy, she realized, and her heart gave a little flutter. They reached the elevator and got in, not noticing Brass holding a couple of agents up to leave them alone.  
  
The small lurch caught her attention as Gil hit the stop button. "Sara, hon," he said, sliding his hands into her hair and holding her face in her hands. "Are you sure you are ok? I was so... worried." Emotion choked his next words, and Sara was suddenly terrified and ecstatic at the same time as she waited for his next words. He paused, wiped at the blood on her lip where she had bitten it, and stared into her eyes for a long time. Her breath had caught when his thumb had caressed her lip, and she knew her eyes were betraying her as she looked at him hopefully. "You took a terrible risk," were the last words she wanted to hear, especially with that exaggerated Grissom patience which bespoke the disappointment he wasn't expressing. "You could have been killed," he finished.  
  
She searched his eyes for another second, and then sighed, her eyes closing in pain for just a moment, before she answered quietly. "Gil, I'm fine, really." She laid her hands on top of his, soaking in the warmth, imprinting the feeling in her memory, before removing them so she could step around to start the elevator again. Silence enveloped them for the remainder of the descent. 


	8. Chapter 8

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the story so far. The encouragement is always welcome. I'm really glad people have enjoyed my work. These are the last two chapters of this story. Enjoy!  
  
--------------  
  
Sara walked slowly over to Cooper, who surprised her by draping his arm around her shoulders, hugging her to his side and giving her a soft kiss on the forehead. She leaned into the obvious comfort of his embrace. Standing in the center of the bustle of the police cars and ambulances, Gil watched Cooper whisper something to her and he could see the vibrations of her laughter shake her body even though he couldn't hear it. He should be happy, the rational part of his brain told him; he had never let anything develop between them just for this reason, so she could find happiness with someone who could be everything she needed. It was a noble sacrifice, he tried to convince himself, as he watched Cooper's cheek resting against her forehead, a sacrifice he had almost blown looking down into Sara's eyes in the elevator.  
  
He could picture the glow in her eyes as he had hesitated, touched his thumb to her lips; he had seen the way she had waited for any expression of care, interest or love. She had waited, just as she always had, for one of his inexplicable moments of affection or the inevitable retreat behind the emotional barriers he had erected so long ago. And he had opened his mouth to say the words, how scared he had been, how he couldn't breath when he had thought she had been shot, and instead he had rebuked her about taking risks. The moment the words were spoken, he regretted them, seeing the shattered look in Sara's eyes before she closed them. But his pain had had a purpose; seeing her embrace her partner and the obvious affection Cooper was willing and able to show, he knew he had done the right thing. If only the right thing didn't tear his heart into shreds, he might just be able to live with himself, he thought. Brass called to him, then, and he turned away from the sight that caused him so much pain in the places where rationality did not hold sway, and forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand.  
  
After he feathered a kiss on her forehead, Sara shifted her weight into Cooper's light embrace, letting the tension that had driven her from the elevator drain from her muscles. If he hadn't been there, she would have collapsed, and he smiled a little against the top of her head as she let her weakness show. That, he knew, was a rare occurrence indeed. And maybe, he thought, she might just be able to listen to what she needed to hear. "You're an idiot," he whispered against her skin. He hurried on, before his comment registered, "He loves you." Her sigh was heartbreakingly sad, and she snuggled a little closer to him, which said everything she couldn't say. "And you are here with me while he's probably watching you, stealing every glance he can without you noticing." He shook her a little. "Go." His mouth quirked into a smile. "Don't make me make that into an order, Sidle."  
  
Sara took a deep breath, trying to gather her strength. Gil had been trying in the elevator, she knew, the same as she knew he would never be the first one to jump into that abyss. His actions spoke in lieu of the words he couldn't say, and a sudden clarity struck her. She brushed a kiss against Cooper's cheek, whispered, "Thank you," against his skin, and then turned, searching the crowd for Grissom.  
  
Catherine caught on first, watching Sara stride purposefully toward Gil, and she hit Warrick's shoulder to get his attention. Nick grunted as Warrick's elbow caught him as he bent down to secure the kit, but his protest died in his throat when he saw what they were looking at.  
  
Sara took a deep breath to calm the butterflies in her stomach, and hoped that it might slow her heartbeat down from the techno beat it was playing, and carefully touched Gil's shoulder, feeling that familiar electricity run through her body and causing her breath to catch in her throat. It's just my hand on his shoulder, through three layers of clothes, she reminded herself, but her ability to think vanished in the blue of his eyes as he turned to look at her. She bit her lower lip, in hesitation, before taking that final, irrevocable step. She saw his mouth open to say something, but no words came as he saw her face, and then the opportunity for words was taken from him as her hands settled on his waist and her lips lightly settled on his.  
  
It wasn't a deep, passionate kiss, not yet. Both of them knew there was time for that later. Instead, it was short and sweet, a mere brush of her lips on his that held all the promise of later kisses and passion. His hands circled her waist, and he leaned his head forward so their foreheads met in the middle of the embrace. The space between their bodies formed the shape of a heart as they stood perfectly still in the midst of the swirl of activity.  
  
"I thought...." he began, unable to finish the thought, but he knew that she, finally, understood him.  
  
Her head shook, almost imperceptibly. "You're an idiot."  
  
"You... probably have a few days off after such a tough case," he said, almost conversationally except for the roughness in his voice and the scared flutter in his stomach. Her forehead rocked against his as she nodded. "Stay." He had never had such difficulty saying a single word before, but this word, he knew, was bigger than both of them. He read her silence perfectly, and the breath he had been holding flowed from his lungs in one long exhalation.  
  
"If you had asked that months ago...or even a few minutes ago..."  
  
"I'm an idiot." He braved a kiss on her forehead, and finally, a glance down into her dark eyes. The swirl of emotions there was all he hoped for, and he raised his hand to brush a few strands of hair back behind her ear, finally able to complete the gesture he had seen in his mind's eye a hundred times. Her soft smile told him she had imagined it too. "Me too," she replied.  
  
"Beautiful, yes, an idiot, never." He slid his hand from her waist to her hand. "Come on," he said as he drew her toward his car. She followed, lagging back just a little, until he dropped her hand and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, her arm quickly circling his waist like they had strolled arm-in-arm like that a million times before. "Where are you taking me?" she asked with mock-suspicion in her voice.  
  
"I want to show you something" was his enigmatic reply.  
  
During this encounter, Brass had sidled up to the SUV where the CSIs were watching. "Shouldn't someone be serving popcorn?" he asked. When Nick glanced at him in confusion, he explained, "Well, I feel like I just watched the ending to a romantic movie." He swept a hand in their direction. "They are even walking off into the sunset together."  
  
"Um, Brass, that's a police car strobe, not a sunset."  
  
He grunted. "Same thing. At least for those two."  
  
"Um, where are they going? We're still on the clock." Catherine gave Nick an exasperated look, and then smacked him when his deadpan expression stretched into a huge smile. 


	9. Epilogue

**Epilogue**  
  
"A physicist..." he began, ignoring the elbow to his ribs from the woman who sat nestled in his arms, "sees the night sky and thinks about the distances between celestial bodies or the chemical composition of stars or even that the light we see is just a reflection of a mass long dead." Her head was on his shoulder, and he could smell the clean scent of her shampoo. He pressed a kiss to her temple and tightened his arms around her waist. They had driven an hour out of the city, far enough so that the incessant lights of the Strip no longer obscured the broad expanse of night sky. He was propped against a rock, cradling Sara's body against his own as they huddled in the blanket he had brought from the SUV. "What a physicist—or scientist," he added hastily, trying to avoid her elbow again, "neglects to see is the simple beauty of the night sky, light glittering against the backdrop of the immensity of space, the connectedness of it all, stars to the smallest grain of sand. It's beautiful, just... beautiful."  
  
"Since when are you interested in beauty?" Her voice was low and husky, almost a purr in her throat. Of all the many scenarios she had imagined in her mind, the reality of being snuggled in Gil's arms looking at the desert sky was immeasurably better.  
  
"Since I met you." He chuckled, his breath warm against Sara's forehead.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I rehearsed that line about a million times for a year and a half," he admitted ruefully. His eyes roamed the night sky, hoping the inspiration would help him find the right words. "It was meant to be a confession of love, of sorts," he added. "A way to tell you about everything you gave me, including the ability to see beauty in the world. I was probably rehearsing it in my head when you stormed into my office that night, and then stormed out of my life, and I never got a chance to say it."  
  
Sara's voice was quiet. "Until now." She laughed a little, under her breath, her body shaking against his chest. "You should have known I'd come back." Her glance read his upraised eyebrow, and she laughed again. "Physics," she said as if that explained everything, and she squirmed back against body, seeking perhaps a more comfortable spot or just simply to be closer. "Gravity. Gravitational pull. A certain attraction that exists between bodies."  
  
He chuckled again. "I'm pretty sure gravity only exists between heavenly bodies."  
  
"Exactly." Her voice was smug, and he was sure if he could see her face, he would see that happy, self-satisfied smile pulling the corners of her mouth, and he laughed quietly, kissing the top of her head.  
  
"A physics of love?"  
  
"Like a science of beauty."  
  
**Fin**


End file.
